Gallery Wall Part One

Well, the gallery wall is up. Only took two full days (yes, full 7-8 hr days) and a lot of breaks to save our sanity. But, it's up! And beautiful I might add : )

This is only part one because while it took us so long to hang the darn things we still have to fill them! Another project for another day.

We started by laying out the frames on the floor and arranging them in various ways until we found one we both agreed on. Here were a few of our options:

We liked the second one better except there was one small issue, the light switch. I wanted to frame out the switch so it looked as if it was part of the gallery wall but H talked me out of it. He said that since the frames are so thick, we would constantly have to stick our hand through the frame to turn off the light, and since it's a switch we use all the time, this wasn't going to work. So we moved some stuff around and traced the frames onto paper before coming up with this.

H and I were both really happy with it except that I wanted to switch out that aweful light switch. When the builders put in all the light switches they over tightened them creating this concave effect on the plastic. Eventually I would like to replace all the switches in the house but at over $5 a piece, that's going to take some time. So I'm happy to change just this one for now.

Up until this point we were doing great. It took us most of the day to get this far but I always think the planning stages of a project take longer than the project itself so I was really hopeful the next day would go smoothly. 

It didn't.

We were using various sized IKEA Ribba frames and boy are they impossible to hang! The frame itself is over an inch think and the hook for the nail head to hang them on the wall is INSIDE the frame. Plus, the hook is impossibly small, requiring a super small nail head. Needless to say, you can't use regular size nails. Some of the larger sizes came with picture wire which was much easier to work with, but even that poses a challenge when you are trying to hang everything in a straight line. What a nightmare. 

Off to Lowes we went in search of 2" nails with a small head and a light switch. We found the light switch no problem, the nails, that was another story. We wound up getting three different boxes of nails and these self-leveling picture hooks just in case. (We have learned from past projects to buy everything you think you might need and just return what you don't later. Otherwise you wind up making three trips to the hardware store before finishing what you started - it's the worst!) 

Ok so without going into too much detail, the nails didn't work, at least not easily. So we went with the self-leveling picture hooks. I totally forgot to take a photo of those so I'll add that in Part Two. These worked great with our handy little hanging gadget we were using to get the frames exactly where we wanted them. Check this out:

Sorry that photo is a little blurry but we used a paint stirrer and a small screw to hold up the frame where we wanted it, pressed the stirrer into the wall and the screw left a hole in the exact location of where to put the nail - this is genius people. Do not, I repeat do not ever attempt a gallery wall without one! I wish I could take credit for this great idea but I found it on a bunch of different blogs when I was researching the easiest way to hang these frames. We used this for the picture wire frames too. It took all the guess work out of where to put the nail resulting an fewer "oops" holes in the wall that we would have had to patch later.

Anyway after measuring and leveling and measuring some more the wall is finally taking shape. 

Here are some tips for those of you who are considering taking on a gallery wall of your own:

- Use a laser level. If you don't have one, go out and buy one (or borrow one from a neighbor like we did - thanks guys!)

- Plan ahead. Don't complain, just do it. Trust me it will save you a headache and lots of patchwork later on.

- Double check all your measurements, a few of ours were off so we used a smaller level and a ruler to get them just right.

- Make yourself that handy little picture hanger thingy. Get a paint stirrer and a small screw, put the screw into the paint stirrer near the bottom so it just pokes out the back. That's it, it's free and easy to use. You will thank me later!

Check back for Part Two when we get some photos in these frames of ours!

JP